


The Live-In PA

by Sunless_Garden



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, John Watson is Pepper Potts, M/M, Sherlock Holmes is Iron Man, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-17 20:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1401457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunless_Garden/pseuds/Sunless_Garden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes is Iron Man. John Watson is his long-suffering personal assistant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Mr. Holmes, you have a meeting with the shareholders at 10," John says, looking down at his BlackBerry and scrolling through his employer's schedule. "You need to take a shower and get dressed."

Sherlock rolls from the bed with a groan. The sheet falls to his feet when he stands - revealing an unsurprising lack of anything underneath. Well, except for the arc reactor, of course.

"Boring," he replies. "JARVIS, cut off mobile access to the flat. Actually, just turn off John's phone."

"Affirmative," the AI responds dryly.

John's mobile screen immediately goes black.

"Mr. Holmes," he scolds lightly. "JARVIS, please turn my phone back on."

"I cannot perform that action at this time, Dr. Watson," the AI tells him. "Mr. Holmes has been experimenting with my programming again."

John sighs, slipping the mobile in his pocket.

"You still have the shareholder meeting in an hour," John tells Sherlock, ignoring the man's nudity as he pulls out the hard copy of his planner: Sherlock has messed with his BlackBerry too many times for John not to have back-up. He grabs a pen from Sherlock's desk: it shocks him when he tries to click it. He drops it, but doesn't even bother jumping. John's used to electric surprises around Sherlock.

"Mature," he mutters, going to his bag to grab his own pen. "Please take a shower and get dressed, Mr. Holmes. Any one of your suits will do at this point. Anderson will be here at 9. You only have 30 minutes."

"Anderson?" Sherlock replies with a sneer of derision. "Why is Anderson my driver? I thought I told you to fire him."

"If I fired everyone you told me to, Holmes Industries would have no employees, Mr. Holmes," John responds, going to Sherlock's closet to pull out his outfit for the day. "Shower, please."

"That's not true: I would still have you," Sherlock tells him. Still naked. "Stop calling me Mr. Holmes. Also, showers are boring."

John resists the urge to sigh.

"You fire me at least once a week. I'll call you 'Sherlock' until lunch if you get showered and dressed by 9. And no, I am not showering with you to 'make it less boring'," he replies, negating Sherlock's favorite argument to try to convince John to share.

Sherlock walks into the bathroom. He doesn't pout, but only because Sherlock 'doesn't pout'. John sometimes wonders how he justifies that logic, but John doesn't call him on it. Most of the time. The teasing isn't worth the retaliation.

One time Sherlock reprogrammed his BlackBerry to moan 'John' every time John got a text message or other alert. John couldn't change the alert, and Sherlock had JARVIS flood John with continuous messages for four days. John also couldn't turn the phone off. Sometimes having a genius consulting detective/engineer/superhero for a boss is more trouble than it's worth. Especially whenever John remembers that he hasn't had an uninterrupted date in close to three years.

"You also have a meeting with Colonel Lestrade at 4," John says. "Don't forget: the British military is requesting the designs for the suit."

"The British government is requesting the designs for the suit," Sherlock corrects. John hears the shower turn on. "Tell Mycroft to piss off."

John gives into the urge to sigh now that Sherlock is out of sight, looking at the time. 8:42 am. No way Sherlock is going to be done before Anderson gets here - not at the speed he's moving. John takes his BlackBerry out. Still off.

"JARVIS?" he says. "Can you turn my mobile back on now?"

"Negative, Dr. Watson," the AI tells him.

Sometimes John wishes he still had something to shoot at. Busting out of that cave in Afghanistan with Sherlock and his ridiculous proto-suit might have resulted in John getting shot, but at least it was fun. Then Sherlock strides out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. He hasn't even bothered to dry his hair. John stops him with a hand on his chest before he can get the suit all wet.

"Dry off properly before you ruin the fabric," he says firmly.

Sherlock smirks at him.

"Why don't you dry me off, John?" he asks, pitching his voice low and seductive.

John doesn't let himself react. For all that Sherlock likes to flirt with John, he is just messing with him: he doesn't really mean it. John is fairly convinced Sherlock is asexual. 'Married to his work' and all that. Sherlock just enjoys try to tease reactions out of John.

"Do you know how much money I could get if I filed the sexual harassment case I have against you?" John asks mildly, grabbing an extra towel and reaching up to drop it on Sherlock's head. "I could retire to Sussex to raise bees. And support Colonel Lestrade as well. He deserves it for all the shit you give him."

Sherlock pushes the towel out of his eyes and starts rubbing his hair dry. He glares at John with those sharp grey eyes.

"You'll not be retiring anywhere with anyone not me," he states imperiously. "And I'm not retiring anytime soon."

"Right. Boring," John mutters, wincing as he catches a glimpse of the clock. "Please get dressed now, Mr. Holmes."

"Sherlock," his boss corrects, but he puts the suit on without further complaints.

"Sherlock," John agrees, because it is 8:59 am and somehow his boss is ready on time. "Let's go."

He checks to make sure his gun is properly in its holster (it is) before shuffling Sherlock out the door and into the limo idling outside.

"You would look formidable in a pencil skirt and high heels," Sherlock informs him seriously as John slides into the back seat after him. Anderson meets John's eyes in the mirror, a disgusted look on his face - John just tells him to drive and puts the partition up.

"You would not look formidable walking into the shareholder meeting with a black eye and busted lip," John replies matter-of-factly. "Now start looking over these briefs. We have 50 minutes or so before we get there."

A live-in personal assistant's job is never done.


	2. Chapter 2

"You bought me strawberries," John says, looking over the large stack of papers in front of him to see the container Sherlock just placed on his desk. Sherlock lounges in the chair across from him, looking unaccountably satisfied with himself, like a cat that's just dragged his master a very large, very dead, rat.

"Yes, John," Sherlock replies simply. John wonders how difficult it was for him to refrain from saying something derisive. Sherlock always hates when John states the obvious. John doesn't particularly care what Sherlock hates, right about now.

"You bought me strawberries to apologize for crashing my Valentines date with Sarah?" John asks, but it is more of a statement than a question. Sherlock is fortunate it was a statement and not a scream - accompanied by John chucking his stupid strawberries at his stupid head. John is too mature to vent his anger in such a way.

He'll wait until spring and sign Sherlock up to play the Easter Bunny in every Easter Egg Hunt John can find that will take him. John will bribe the organizers if he has to - with Sherlock's money, of course.

Sherlock frowns. It is fairly obvious to John that he doesn't like that John explicitly called his offering an apology.

"Stop being angry with me," Sherlock tells him, a command more than a request.

It does the opposite of what Sherlock intends. Before, John was simply angry. Now John is very, very angry. But he is good at being quietly angry, and he's not even sure Sherlock realizes just how angry John is. That's okay: John will make it clear to him.

"Mr. Holmes," he says sharply, firmly enunciating the name. "I am your employee. I am not your babysitter, your slave, or your belonging. I worked until 11 pm for two weeks to free up enough time to take Tuesday night for myself. I informed you a month in advanced that I would need to leave work at precisely 5 pm on Tuesday, February 14th. You crashed my date by literally crashing through the roof of the most expensive restaurant in London to terrorize Sarah with your extremely personal deductions, before kidnapping me in front of 92 witnesses to work a 'case' that you solved in approximately 10 minutes."

Sherlock opens his mouth, but John shuts him up with a sharp glare as he continues.

"I know there were precisely 92 witnesses, because I had to read every single police report and will spend the rest of the day writing apologies to these individuals for disturbing their romantic evening. You will be lucky if you do not have six dozen lawsuits against you, in addition to that from the restaurant. I will be working overtime for weeks to try to clear up this fiasco, and you got your name - and worse, mine - smeared in every major newspaper and tabloid. You made us both look like fools. Ah! Don't open your mouth, because I will gag you with these strawberries. You created all this work and trouble for absolutely no reason. Rather than apologize, you bought me strawberries. Of all the food items in the world, I am allergic to exactly one. Do you want to 'deduce' what that is, Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock just looks at him sullenly.

"No? You can't guess?" John asks, his tone deceptively mild.

"I don't guess," Sherlock mutters stubbornly. "You're allergic to strawberries, John."

"Yes, I'm allergic to strawberries. Good observation, you brilliant genius you," John answers dully. "Now please leave. I will stop being angry with you when I damn well feel like it."

Sherlock stares at the strawberries on John's desk like they are the root of all evil.

"I'm sorry," Sherlock murmurs quietly, still looking down at the strawberries. "I'm sorry, John."

John sighs, a lot of the anger seeping from him at those words. Not all of it, though.

"We'll be fine," he replies. "We always are, eventually. Now I have a lot of work to do. Please leave."

Sherlock swallows heavily: John can see his Adam's apple moving with the motion.

"I don't like it when you spend time with other people," Sherlock tells him. His voice is quiet, hushed. It is almost endearing that Sherlock thinks his jealousy is any secret: to John, or to the world.

Almost endearing, of course, is not quite actually endearing. John is still half-tempted to conk him on the head with the strawberries. John has excellent self-control, though, so he simply grabs the next document off his stack of paperwork and resumes working.

"Bring me Thai for dinner and we'll talk about it," John tells him, not bothering to look up from his pen. "Sometime between 6 and 8. Have JARVIS set you a reminder. And please, come in any suit that isn't metal."

"My birthday suit?" Sherlock questions in response. John can practically hear the smirk in his voice, but he refuses to look up and give Sherlock the satisfaction.

"If you show up naked to the office, I really will sue you for sexual harassment," John responds, ducking his head further to hide his smile. "After I trip and accidentally collide my fist with your face, of course. Now go explain to your brother why you were crashing through roofs last night. I do believe that is his car pulling up now."

"Interfering busybody," Sherlock mumbles as he walks to the door.

John just shakes his head and continues with his work. Just another day as the live-in personal assistant of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man and the world's only consulting detective.


	3. Chapter 3

_Please, God, just let me live._

John is staring death in the face. He can fight men bigger than him hand-to-hand - two or three at a time, even. He can shoot a person at point blank range - or snipe them from far away. He can even occasionally get Sherlock Holmes to show up to board meetings. But John cannot fight these suits. His bullets bounce off the metal, not leaving so much as a scratch. And he cannot outrun them either, or hide - they seem strangely locked onto him, and he is now backed into a corner - out of bullets and ideas. Surrounded by eight of the things. 

"I told Sherlock I would burn the heart out of him," a tinny voice emits from one of the suits in front of him, and the face plate pulls back to reveal a man underneath. Moriarty. It is unusual for him to be present at a fight in person - he likes to pull the strings from behind the scenes and safely away from the scene of danger - and any evidence that can tie him to his terrorist organization and have him land in jail for the rest of his miserable life. 

"Do you think it will hurt Sherlock more to come across your dead, disfigured body, knowing that you died alone - or should I wait until he arrives to blow off your head so he can watch, knowing that he was there but couldn't save you? You know him best. Which would have more of an impact?"

John just raises his chin, refusing to his answer. He will not be complicit in his own end, and he knows that Sherlock will be hurt either way. Sherlock takes his failures very personally, and there is little in Sherlock's life that is more personal than John. It is not Sherlock's fault that this mad man is targeting him and Holmes Industries, but Sherlock will take the blame onto himself anyway. If John had a single bullet left, he would place it right between Moriarty's crazy eyes and take the fucker down with him. Sherlock has done so much good for this world - and for John. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve any of this.

Neither does John, but between the two of them, John is much more capable of handling emotional pain - guilt, grief, loneliness. John just hopes that Mycroft will step up once he's gone and take up John's efforts in preventing Sherlock from falling back into bad habits.

An incoming missile hits one of the suits, tearing it to pieces and ripping into the suit closest to it. Sherlock suddenly touches down between John, shielding him from flying bits of shrapnel before stepping forward - between John and Moriarty. But including Moriarty, there are still six suits around them, and John is still far too exposed. 

"John doesn't have anything to do with this," Sherlock says, his face plate pulling back so he can stare Moriarty in the eyes. "Let him leave, and we will settle this once and for all."

"Oh Sherlock," Moriarty practically sings. "Always trying to save your friends, save everyone. And you want me to think you don't care? I don't see how you could possibly care _more_ -especially for this waste of space and brain matter. Really, one shouldn't get so attached to pets. They never last long."

Another missile - and two of the other suits are now scrap metal. John stumbles a bit, and another suit lands to John's left - between John and two of the three remaining non-Moriarty suits. The face plate pulls back - Lestrade. 

"I didn't know you were lending out your suits, now," John comments, half-annoyed and half-relieved. Four suits to two is much better odds than six suits to one - but if he manages to survive this, John is going to have _words_ with Sherlock about giving Lestrade a suit before giving one to John.

"You don't know everything, John," Sherlock replies. 

And suddenly there is a metal glove on John's right hand - and then his left. A matter of seconds, and a suit configures around him. 

"Jarvis?" John queries. "How do I shoot?"

"Point and fire, sir," Jarvis responds, and John does just that.

Well, three on three, now. John feels much better about his odds of surviving this, especially now that he is within a suit of his own. He'll likely survive long enough to yell at Sherlock for making him worry - and to hug him for pulling through for John and saving his life.

"Good shot, John," Sherlock tells him, his face plate falling back down with a _clink_. Moriarty's face plate falls back down as well, and then Lestrade's. 

The game is on.


End file.
